A first contingent of 100 Palestinian police was poised to enter the Gaza Strip on Monday evening, but there was still no official word as to when the Palestinians would replace the Israeli forces still stationed there.
Throughout the day, excited Palestinian residents of the newly autonomous Gaza area crowded around the Rafah border crossing from Egypt, where the Palestinian police had been assembled since Saturday evening.
But the hours dragged on Monday with no word of when the contingent would arrive. Eventually, nervous Israel Defense Force soldiers had to fire tear gas into the crowd of Palestinians to disperse them.
Clashes between the IDF and frustrated Gazans took place in several locations Monday. At least 10 Palestinians were wounded when Israeli troops fired rubber bullets into crowds of stone-throwing youths.
After arriving at the Rafah crossing Saturday night, the Palestinian police, dressed in new olive-drab uniforms donated by the Norwegian government, spent all day Sunday and Monday waiting for the order to cross.
Preceding them across the border on Sunday were the light weapons they would eventually use. After arriving on the Gaza side of the border, Israeli and Palestinian officials inspected the weapons one by one, with the Israelis listing their serial numbers in case it would some day be necessary to identify any of the weapons.
SEVERAL ACCOUNTS REGARDING THE DELAY
As both Palestinians and Israelis waited for the police to move off into the Strip, there were several accounts attempting to explain why the delay had occurred.
According to one news report, the Palestinians had not assembled enough police to guarantee security in Gaza. More police had been scheduled to arrive from Yemen, but they were unable to leave the country because of the civil war raging there.
The Israelis, according to this account, were calling for at least 1,400 police to assume control.
Another reported explanation was that Israel had stated that no police could enter the autonomous areas until the Palestine Liberation Organization supplied a list of the 24-member Palestinian Authority that will have overall responsibility for Palestinian affairs in Gaza and the West Bank town of Jericho.
Gad Ben-Ari, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s spokesman, flatly denied that Israel had made this demand.
A third explanation, based on the reported comments of a senior PLO official in Gaza, was that the Palestinians simply did not have the necessary funds to move their police into position.
In Jericho, meanwhile, the Israeli Nature Reserves Authority has been ordered to relinquish control of three national sites it has been responsible for since 1967: the ancient synagogue, the Tel of Jericho and Hisham’s Palace.
Three right-wing Knesset members — Dov Shilansky, Tzachi Hanegbi and Hanan Porat — who have been camped out at Jericho’s ancient synagogue in defiance of IDF orders told a news conference on Sunday that they are still trying to negotiate a continued yeshiva presence at the site.
While the IDF has been able to keep other protesters away from Jericho, the Knesset members have parliamentary immunity from any IDF orders.
“The government had better realize that we won’t leave one single place where Jews are settled, no matter what happens,” Porat, of the National Religious Party, said.
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